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COPil^GHT DEPOSIT. 



THE DOOR OF DREAMS 



THE DOOR OF DREAMS 



BY 



JESSIE B. RITTENHOUSE 

AUTHOR OF "THE YOUNGER AMERICAN POETS' 

EDITOR OF 

"THE LITTLE BOOK OF MODERN VERSE" 

AND "THE LITTLE BOOK OF 

AMERICAN POETS" 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

The Riverside Press Cambridge 

1918 



^^■\^\ 



COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY JESSIE B. RITTENHOUSE 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published February IQ18 



l,VO 



FEB 25 1918 



'a.A4818'.'4 



I often passed the Door of Dreams 

But never stepped inside^ 
Though sometimes^ with surprise^ I saw 

The door was open wide. 

I might have gone forever hy^ 

As I had done before^ 
But one day^ when I passed^ I saw 

You standing in the door. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

Thanks are due the editors of Harper* s 
Magazine^ Scribner'*s Magazine, McClure'^s 
Magazine, The Poetry Journal, Contemporary 
Verse, Good Housekeeping, The Lyric, and 
the New York Times for permission to re- 
print poems which originally appeared in 
their pages. 



CONTENTS 



SECTION I 

DEBT 3 

APART 4 

SILENCE 5 

WORDS 6 

LOSS 7 

FROST IN SPRING 8 

PARADOX 9 

RETURN "10 

DEFEAT 1 1 

THE HOUR 12 

WITH SONG-BIRDS , 13 

THE RIVER 14 

EMBERS 15 

SECTION II 

THE GHOST 19 

SEA-BIRDS 20 

THE BELL-BUOY 21 

A SKIFF 22 

INLAND WATERS 24 

MY WAGE 25 

ix 



CONTENTS 

WINDOWS 26 

MYSELF 27 

THE DOME OF ST. LUKe's HOSPITAL 28 

CALVARY 30 
ANN TO DE QUINCEY , 31 

THE FUNERAL BARGE 32 

WHITE PEACOCKS 33 

SECTION III 

THE DESERT ROSE 37 

FREEDOM 38 

JOY 39 

WHEN YOU GO 40 

A SEA-CHANGE 41 

THE END 42 

THE ANGEL OF THE SWORD 43 

THE AVOWAL 44 

RELEASE 45 

INTERLUDE 46 

VALUES 47 

THE GHOSTLY GALLEY 48 

SECTION IV 

THE COAT OF MAIL 51 

TO ONE DYING IN WAR-TIME 52 

SONGS TO ONE PASSING 53 
X 



CONTENTS 

SECTION V 

A NIGHTINGALE AT FRESNOY 59 

TO POETS WHO FALL IN BATTLE 61 

" I HAVE NO LOVER ON THE BATTLEFIELD " 62 

PATRINS 63 



THE DOOR OF DREAMS 

[I] 



THE DOOR OF DREAMS 

DEBT 

My debt to you, Beloved, 

Is one I cannot pay 
In any coin of any realm 

On any reckoning day ; 

For where is he shall figure 
The debt, when all is said. 

To one who makes you dream again 
When all the dreams were dead ? 

Or where is the appraiser 

Who shall the claim compute, 

Of one who makes you sing again 
When all the songs were mute ? 



APART 

Ah, now that I have loved you, 

I can no longer go 
Across the wide, eternal sea 

When spring winds blow; 

I cannot look on Como 

When the moon drifts through the air 
And all the rapt, still mountains 

Stand by, as if aware ; 

I cannot watch the fishermen, 

Home in the early day. 
Spread all their dripping nets to dry 

By blue Salerno Bay, — 

I cannot look on Italy 

For, if we are apart. 
The pang of all her loveliness 

Would break my heart ! 



SILENCE 

O MANY and vain, Beloved, 
The words I spoke to you 

In those first wondering hours 
When love was new ! 

Now we have wandered together 

Into a mystic land. 
Now we are silent, Beloved, 

Because we understand. 



WORDS 

I WEAVE you, dear, when you are far, 
Words fairer than all things that are : 
Words fairer than the light that falls 
At night in Rome on ruined walls; 
Words fairer than an Alpine Spring 
When all the dawn is glistening; 
Words fairer than the petals shed 
From the pomegranate's blossom red. 

And all these words, in dreams apart, 
Keep a still wonder in my heart, 
And every night they carry me 
Out on a tide of ecstasy. 
And every day they bring me back 
Along the same enchanted track. 
Until that one day when you come. 
And our eyes meet — and I am dumb ! 



LOSS 

Once was the need of you 
A pain too great to bear, 

And all my heart went calling you 
In work and song and prayer. 

But now dull time has brought 
A sadder, stranger lot — 

That I should look upon the day 
And find I need you not. 



FROST IN SPRING 

Oh, had it been in Autumn, when all is spent and 
sere, 

That the first numb chill crept on us, with its 
ghostly hint of fear, 

I had borne to see love go, with things detached and 
frail. 

Swept outward with the blowing leaf on the un- 
resting gale. 

But when day is a magic thing, when Time begins 
anew, 

When every clod is parted by Beaut}^ breaking 
through, — 

How can it be that you and I bring Love no offer- 
ing, 

How can it be that frost should fall upon us in the 
Spring ! 



PARADOX 

I WENT out to the woods to-day 

To hide away from you, 
From you a thousand miles away — 

But you came, too. 

And yet the old dull thought would stay. 
And all my heart benumb — 

If you were but a mile away 
You would not come. 



RETURN 

You came again, but silence 
Had fallen on your heart, 

And in your eyes were visions 
That held us still apart. 

And now I go on hearing 
The words you did not say, 

And the kiss you did not give me 
Bums on my lips to-day. 



10 



DEFEAT 

All the gifts I did not ask, 
Life came and brought to me, 

Until I stood amazed before 
Such prodigality. 

And yet I failed in my one task, 
In my one enterprise, — 

I could not keep the fire alight 
Within your eyes. 



11 



THE HOUR 

You loved me for an hour 
Of all your careless days 

And then you went forgetting 
Down your own ways. 

How could you know that Time 
would work 

A magic deed for me 
And fix that single hour 

For my eternity ! 



12 



WITH SONG-BIRDS 

Love came to me so many times 

It grew a common thing, 
I thought that it would always come 

With song-birds in the Spring ; 

And so I dreamed and wondered 
What next year's love would be, 

Until one Spring there came no bird- 
To any blossoming tree. 



13 



THE RIVER 

One sultry night a year ago 

You came and sat with me 
Where in the river breeze might blow 

The salt breath of the sea. 

You never sought my hands or lips, 
There in the summer night, 

We only sat and watched the ships 
Shine with their double light; 

And spoke the careless words, we knew 

Would hide the memory 
Of all that I had been to you 

And you had been to me. 

Then home from the dark river, swept 
By searchlights on the shore. 

And all that wakeful night I wept — 
For you I loved no more. 



14 



EMBERS 

What was once so quick and glowing. 

Leaping high in flame, 
Like a fire in night-wind blowing 

When you spoke my name, — 

Smoulders now and scarce remembers 
How it burned — but mark, 

If you stir the whitening embers 
Still outleaps the spark ! 



15 



[11] 



THE GHOST 

A SCORE of years you had been lying 

In this spot, 
Yet I, to whom you were the dearest, 

Had seen it not. 

And when to-day, by time emboldened, 

I looked upon the stone, 
'T was not your ghost that stood beside me, 

But my own. 



19 



SEA-BIRDS 

Birds that float upon a wave, 
Resting from the tiring air. 

Be the hopes that I would save 
From despair ! 

Menaced by the sky above, 
Menaced by the deep below. 

You rock as on the breast of Love, 
To and fro. 

If immensities like these 

Cannot fright a thing so frail, 

I will keep my heart at ease 
In the gale ! 



20 



THE BELL-BUOY 

The far-ofF bell-buoy in the fog 

Keeps ringing momently, 
It does not sound to me at all 

Like wave-rung bells at sea; 

I only hear as it drifts in, 

Softened by spaces wide. 
The church-bells of my childhood ring 

Across the countryside. 



21 



A SKIFF 

A SKIFF Upon the inland streams, 

And not a frigate on the sea, 
Is this, my heart, that drifts and dreams 

In sweet, alluring vagrancy. 

Out there upon the main, I know. 
Brave galleons of thought set sail. 

And there the winds of fortune blow, 
And there the master hopes prevail ; 

And oft insistently a tide 

Sets seaward in my restless heart. 

And I upon the deep would ride 
And in the traffic bear a part. 

And yet what stays me, that I lie 

At morning by some green-fringed marge, 
And smile to see the schooner high, 

And smile to see the barge. 
22 



A SKIFF 

And know that they will reach the main 
League- lengths ahead of me, 

And bear their cargo home again, 
Ere I have dared the sea ? 



INLAND WATERS 

Inland waters by the sea, 

Sad in your tranquillity, 

How good if you could share the shock 

Of breakers beating on the rock ; 

How good if you could fly in spray 

On your rainbow wings away ; 

How good if sea-gulls on your breast. 

With wide wings dipping, came to rest ! 

How dull it is that you should stay 
Locked within your hills alway ; 
How sad it is you cannot know 
Great ships passing to and fro ; 
How calm the winds that bring no breath 
Of terror, danger, pain, and death ! — 
And yet how many lives must be 
Like inland waters by the sea. 



24 



MY WAGE 

I BARGAINED with Life for a penny, 
And Life would pay no more, 

However I begged at evening 

When I counted my scanty store ; 

For Life is a just employer, 
He gives you what you ask, 

But once you have set the wages, - 
Why, you must bear the task. 

I worked for a menial's hire, 
Only to learn, dismayed. 

That any wage I had asked of Life, 
Life would have paid. 



25 



WINDOWS 

I LOOKED through others' windows 

On an enchanted earth, 
But out of my own window — 

Solitude and dearth. 

And yet there is a mystery 

I cannot understand — 
That others through my window 

See an enchanted land. 



26 



MYSELF 

They look at me as if they knew me, 
All these people whom I meet, 

But to myself I am a stranger 
Passing in the street. 

I meet the stranger's eyes with question 

Looking into mine, 
And with a sudden recognition 

We give a sign. 

Then we are lost again, we mingle 

' In the effacing crowd, 
And I forget those eyes that called me 
As though one spoke aloud, — 

Until another signal moment 

Flashes identity, 
And in the maze of life, arrested, 

My soul looks out at me. 



27 



THE DOME OF ST. LUKE'S 
HOSPITAL 

Across the street from me St. Luke's 

Towers gray and high, 
And my two windows frame the dome 

Lifting against the sky. 

From Momingside the rising sun 
First lights the cross for me, 

And from Riv-erside the setting sun 
Lingers that I may see ; 

While all day long a sculptured saint, 

Holding a mystic book, 
Turns from it to my window pane 

As straight as he can look. 

The doves that house in every niche. 

Circle about his head, 
And on the hands that hold the book, 

Rest and are comforted. 
28 



THE DOME OF ST. LUKE S HOSPITAL 

Now every week within those walls 

They tell me many die, 
And yet I only see the dome 

Lifting against the sky. 



CALVARY 

I WALKED alone to my calvary, 
And no man carried the cross for me. 
Carried the cross ? Nay, no man knew 
The fearful load that I bent unto, 
But each as we met upon the way 
Spoke me fair of the journey I walked 
that day. 

I came alone to my calvary. 

And high was the hill and bleak to see, 

But lo, as I scaled its flinty side, 

A thousand went up to be crucified ! 

A thousand kept the way with me. 

But never a cross my eyes could see. 



30 



ANN TO DE QUINCEY 

You questioned, all the restless years, 
Why I, who went from you with tears, 
Should not have come again to share 
Your nights of wandering vigil there. 

You sought my face in every face 
In London streets, but found no trace 
Of her who gave you wine and bread 
And pillowed on her breast your head. 

O blinded eyes, did you not see 
Because I loved I left you free ? 
For Oxford Street to one outcast 
Must be stepmother to the last. 



31 



THE FUNERAL BARGE 

In Venice once I saw a funeral barge, 

I had not dreamed death could so lovely be, 

Nor that one might in peace so utter calm 
Float to infinity. 

Under a black-plumed canopy he lay, 

Upon a velvet dais, flower-sweet. 
Two boatmen rowed in silence at his head, 

Two boatmen at his feet. 

And softer than a breast of feathered bird 

The great swan barge moved downward to the 
sea. 

While singers following made all the air 
Sweet with a threnody. 

I watched them bear him seaward with a song. 

To rest at last his island bed upon. 
And in my heart, entranced with Death, I knew 

That isle was Avalon ! 
32 



WHITE PEACOCKS 

To Sara Teasdale 

Once at Isola Bella, 

With sunset in the sky, 

We stood on the topmost terrace — 
You and I. 

Around us Lago Maggiore, 

Incomparably fair, 
Gave back the hues of heaven 

To the Italian air. 

Then up the marble terrace. 
Below the cypress trees, 

Came a flock of milk-white peacocks 
With fans spread to the breeze. 

Rose-pink on each outspread feather, 
Rose-pink upon the crest — 

Never were birds in plumage 
So ravishingly drest ! 
33 



THE DOOR OF DREAMS 

Wherever we walked, they followed, 

Stately at our feet; 
No picture so enchanting 

Will any hour repeat. 

And here in the murky city 

Those milk-white peacocks seem 
To follow and follow me ever, 

Like ghosts of a haunting dream. 



[Ill] 



THE DESERT ROSE 

Who, passing through the valley of Baca, make it a well.'* 

I THOUGHT, dear heart, that we had gone 
Too far beneath the desert sun 

To breathe again that flower of flowers, 
That bloom of blooms in one. 

But now I see — oh, miracle 

Of Very Love that cannot fail ! — • 

That two who through the desert pass 
Shall make of it a well ; 

And on its brink shall flowers spring 
For their eternal comforting, 

And from parched skies a singing bird 
Shall light and dip its wing ! 



37 



FREEDOM 

Be free of me as any bird 

That circles in the air, 
Be free of me as any cloud 

That mountain summits wear ; 

Be free as any wandering wind 

That blows across the sea, 
Be free as any restless wave 

That moves continually 

For freest things must tire of flight. 
And restless things must rest, 

And all the lonesome winds will drive 
You to my breast ! 



38 



JOY 

Now I can sing of happy things 
And let the sad world go its way^ 

Since you have spoken words that turn 
The night to day. 

Now I can sow beside all streams 
And care not if another reap, 

Since all that I would gamer here ^ 
Is mine to keep. 

Now I can scatter joy about 

Like green young leaves that fall in 
spring, 
Because the tree is all too rich 

In bourgeoning ! 



39 



WHEN YOU GO 

When you go, a hush falls 

Ov'Cr all my heart, 
And in a trance of my own dreams 

I move apart. 

When you go, the street grows 

Like a vacant place — 
What if a million faces pass 

If not your face ? 

When you go, my life stops 
Like ships becalmed at sea. 

And waits the breath from heaven 
that blows 
You back to me. 



40 



A SEA-CHANGE 

Once in a year of wonder 
I brought to you a dream, 

And all your waves gave back to me 
Only its gleam. 

But now I come again, O Sea, 

Under a changing sky. 
And all your waves lie gray and still 

As dreams that die. 



41 



THE END 

Let us cease now ; it is too late to wonder 
That love should prove a mortal thing at last, 
Or that corrosive Time at length should sunder 
That which was bound so fast. 

Let us cease now ; it is too late for weeping, 
It is too late to stay what would be gone. 
Sometime the caged thing will escape its keeping 
And leave but emptiness to ponder on. 

Let us cease now, and without indecision. 
That all is lost, there is no room for doubt — 
We were not great enough for Love, the Vision, 
And love, the flame, has swept us and burnt out ! 



42 



THE ANGEL OF THE SWORD 

The angel with the flaming sword 
Has shut me out from heaven's gate, 

And I may not reenter there, 
Though long I wait ; 

And yet, O Angel of the Sword, 

I do not grudge the thrust you deal. 

For still the keenest pain of wounds 
Is that wounds heal ! 



43 



THE AVOWAL 

If I had told you not, 

Then might you still to me 

Be my soul's secret fane, 
My dream, my mystery. 

But now a word has rent 

The temple veil apart. 
And shown me that the secret fane 

Is empty — as my heart. 



44 



RELEASE 

What can you care, forgetful Time, 
Who drop all sweet things by the way, 

How long this voice within my heart 
Should call to me, and stay ? 

So loose me. Time, and let me go, 
No longer to old dreams a thrall — 

Yet with what dream shall I replace ^ 
That sweetest dream of all ? 



45 



INTERLUDE 

Often in fear, Beloved, 

I think that it is gone, 
This love that made our days and nights 

A hope to dream upon. 

And then in some wonderful moment 

It springs again to flower, 
And you and I are re-living 

That first great hour ! 



46 



VALUES 

O Love, could I but take the hours 
That once I spent with thee, 

And coin them all in minted gold, 

What should I purchase that would hold 
Their worth in joy to me ? 

Ah, Love, — another houi' with thee ! 



47 



THE GHOSTLY GALLEY 

When comes the ghostly galley 
Whose rowers dip the oar 

Without a sound to startle us, 
Unheeding on the shore, — 

If they should beckon you aboard 

Before they beckon me, 
How could I bear the waiting time 

Till I should put to sea ! 



48 



[IV] 



THE COAT OF MAIL 

To-day came word incredible — 
That one whom I love passing w^ell, 
One dear as my own soul to me, 
Must meet the dark extremity, 
And weeks alone might keep alight 
That spirit battling with the night. 

What can I say to one who goes - 
Foredoomed to fall before his foes ? 
Mock him with hope that he may be 
More valiant than his enemy ? 
Commend to him the shield of trust, 
Invulnerable to every thrust ? 

No, in these days supreme and few 
Leave him to forge an armor new; 
For he alone, by day, by night. 
Can weld the burnished links aright 
Till at the last he shall prevail. 
Clad in his spirit's coat of mail. 
51 



TO ONE DYING IN WAR-TIME 

You hear the marching of their feet, 
You know your comrades go to war, 

You know that you will never march 
To music, more. 

You lie and dream through waning hours 

Of soldiers splendid in array, 
And how the bugles must be calling 

At break of day. 

You think how gladly you would go 
To where the fight is heaviest, 

But weariness is on you now, 
And you must rest. 

Yet do not grieve, O stricken heart, 
A keener bugle yet shall blow. 

And in the march of nobler hosts 
Your feet shall go ! 



52 



SONGS TO ONE PASSING 

I 

Your wistful eyes that day you left, 
They haunt me all the night, 

I never saw in any eyes 
So mystical a light. 

I knew the day you went from me 
That you would come no more, 

And yet I said the casual words 
That I had said before. 

If only then I had been true 
And held you in my arms. 

And shielded you a moment's space 
From death's alarms ! 



II 

The world of careless people 
It will not even know 
53 



THE DOOR OF DREAMS 

The day your lonely spirit 
Is called to go ; 

Nor all the months of exile, 

Lying on your bed, 
That you have heard the wings of death 

Hovering overhead. 

To all the careless people 

Who hurry to and fro 
That day will be as other days — 

But I shall know. 



Ill 

I cannot sing, words mock me so. 
I cannot sing, I only know 
That you are lying far from me, 
Almost within the Mystery. 

I only wonder what you think 
As you draw nearer to the brink, 
I only wonder whose the hand 
Will welcome you to that strange land. 
54 



SONGS TO ONE PASSING 

IV 

I send no message to you now, 

There are no words to say, 
I would not grieve you by a thought 

Before you go away; 

But thoughts of mine already fledge 
Themselves for farther flight, 

And they will meet you when you come 
Within The Light! 



[V] 



A NIGHTINGALE AT FRESNOY 

Never, they say, were guns so loud, 
Never were flames so bright, 

As those that made at Fresnoy 
Inferno of the night ; 

And when the searchlight fires lit 
The slender, new-green trees, - 

They could be seen to tremble 
As never in a breeze. 

At Fresnoy in the little wood 
Just greening with the spring, 

A nightingale, undaunted. 
Lifted his voice to sing; 

And in each moment's silence 

When torn earth held her breath, 

Before the fearful guns again 
Uttered their Song of Death, — 
59 



THE DOOR OF DREAMS 

The nightingale, oblivious 
Of all the ghastly strife, 

Was heard within the little wood 
To sing the Song of Life ! 



TO POETS WHO FALL IN 
BATTLE 

You who go to battle, 

Careless of eclipse, 
And quaff Death like a beaker 

Brimming to the lips, — 

You who seek in battle 
Things that cannot fail, 

And raise this brimming beaker 
As if it were the Grail, — 

Thanks to you who show me 
What the soul can be ! 

God speed to you, brothers, 
And a glad eternity! 



61 



"I HAVE NO LOVER ON THE 
BATTLEFIELD" 

I HAVE no lover on the battlefield, 

I do not go with sickening fear at heart, 

And when the crier calls the latest horror 

I do not start. 

I have no lover on the battlefield, 

I am exempt from terror of the night, 

I can lie down, serene and unregarding, 

Until the light. 

But on the battlefield had I a lover, 

How life would purge itself of petty pain. 

And what would matter all the petty losses, 

The petty gain ? 

I should be one with those who suffer greatly, 

With pain all pain above. 

And I should know then, beyond peradventure, 

The heart of Love ! 



62 



PA TRINS 

You know^ dear^ that the gipsies strexv 
Some broken boughs along the way 

To mark the trail for one who comes, 
A tardy pilgrim of the day. 

And so my songs, that have no xvorth 
Save that best worth of being true. 

Are but as patnns strewn to show 
The way I came in lovirig you. 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



